Thus, a Washington subsidy of say $80 billion over the coming decade would translate into US8 billion (C$12 billion) for those Canadian farmers struggling for survival.

Mr. Vanclief contends that Ottawa lacks the cash for this sort of program, so he speaks of a market oriented approach. Theoretically, he may be right but he ignores world market realities.

The European Community alone spends $80 billion a year on supporting its farmers which comes in various guises, particularly in the form of environmental and ecology payments. So it’s a cheap jibe to blame the Americans alone for low world food prices.

Both wish to sustain healthy rural communities. Both, in realty, don’t care a tinker’s cuss for the World Trade Organization (WTO), while Ottawa offers pious support. Strangely, as it pleads poverty Auditor General Sheila Fraser reveals that since 1991 $32 billion has been squirreled away in nine secret "foundations." The money may be used by Cabinet ministers, including Mr. Vanclief, for pet projects, without the knowledge of Canadian electors.

So what’s to be done? Farm leaders must quit their cowardly vacillations, while farm families have to insist on strong leadership. They could do worse than take U.S. farmers as a mirror image. Across the border they selected up to a dozen swing states that could change hands at the coming November elections, exerting enough strong pressure until the pips squeaked.

For grains and oilseed sectors support was increased by up to $7 billion a year, and hard-pressed dairy farmers get an expanded aid program. The ceiling is capped at 135 milking cows.

Contrary to what our political flacks imply, a limit on what families can get was cut US$100,000 from an earlier peak of $460,000. So the legislation was not a goodie for opulent and greedy corporate interests. Rather, as U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman insists, the policy is to help keep farm families in business until world commodity prices improve, adding that the Western world’s farming economies are naturally high cost.

American farmers cannot be expected to subsist on a few dollars a day.

From a Canadian perspective we must ask ourselves if we can match rural America’s courage and shrewdness when it comes to demanding results from elected politicians. Would we be unanimous in a confrontation rather than buckle under or even fawn in the presence of the great one in Ottawa? Too often farm groups have argued among themselves, leaving them open to a wily MP’s divide and rule tactics.